NONTECHNICAL SUMMARY Color is all around us—in clothing, art, nature, and everyday objects—and it has shaped human history for thousands of years. Most colors we see come from chemical dyes and pigments that absorb certain wavelengths of light. But in nature, some of the most stunning colors—like those on butterfly wings or bird feathers—come from tiny structures that bend and scatter light, not from pigments. This is called structural color. This project explores how to recreate those natural effects using materials that mimic the way bird feathers produce color. By experimenting with tiny particles and the materials that hold them together, the research team hopes to learn how different structures create different colors. Using computer simulations and machine learning, they will develop tools to design new materials that show color without using dyes. This work could lead to more sustainable, long-lasting colors for everything from clothing to cosmetics—no fading, no chemicals. The research team will also share their findings through a public science blog and educational events to make this exciting science more accessible to everyone. TECHNICAL SUMMARY This project focuses on computational research on biomimetic melanin-based structural color. In nature, melanin nanoparticles enmeshed in a keratin matrix can impart a variety of colors. Experimentalists have been able to reproduce this effect using mixtures of melanin and silica nanoparticles. In this project,